Dominic Remembers
by CherryRedSi
Summary: Told by Dominic - takes place after the last hijacking, but Dom tells bits and pieces of his childhood and growing up with Letty.
1. An Uninvited Guest

Echo Park, Los Angeles, 1981  
  
There was an uninvited guest at my fourth birthday party. She came in the form of a screeching, screaming, howling baby with inky black hair and a tiny nose that flared out when she cried. Lung-Baby belonged to Luz and Tito Rodriguez, my best friend Raul's parents.  
  
One day, a few weeks before my fourth birthday party, while playing with Raul, I noticed Luz sitting with my mother on the couch while my mother fed my new baby sister Mia.  
  
"Hey, Raul. Your mom's belly is really big. I remember my mom's belly being that big before. Then one day, it wasn't big anymore. That's when my mom and dad showed me who Mia was at the hospital."  
  
"So that means that Mia is gonna come live at MY house?" asked Raul. "Because you said that after your mom's belly wasn't big anymore, Mia came. So Mia's gonna come live with me!"  
  
I frowned. I liked Mia. I wasn't sure if I wanted Raul and his older brother Diego to share her with me. "Maybe something different will appear after your mom's stomach gets smaller."  
  
Raul shrugged. "I think that a gorilla will come live with us."  
  
"Nahhh. Maybe another baby, just like Mia."  
  
"I hope it's a gorilla."  
  
Just then, Luz stood up and teetered toward Raul and I. Luz bent forward and ruffled my curly hair.  
  
"Okay, Dommy, it's time for Raul and I to go home. Maybe Raul can come back to play tomorrow, okay?" Luz said, in her gentle Spanish accent, using her pet name for me. I nodded and waved goodbye to them as my mom walked them out the front door.  
  
My fourth birthday party arrived. I was so excited that I could barely sleep the night before. We were having a barbecue and Dad was going to let us take turns riding his four-wheeler around the yard. I was playing on our monkey bars when I saw Tito and Luz walk Raul into the yard. My face lit up when I saw them. I jumped down and ran toward Tito. He opened his arms to me in a big hug.  
  
"Hey, Dommy, happy birthday, pal!" Tito exclaimed, squeezing me. Luz hugged me and kissed my curls, her belly still huge.  
  
"Dominic, this is for you!" exclaimed Raul. He held out a gift-wrapped package.  
  
I took it. "Thanks, guys!"  
  
Tito and Luz smiled. "Open it up with the others, Dommy," Luz said. Just then, my mother came out of the house and hugged and kissed Raul's parents. Dad was grilling at the grill and waved to the Rodriguez's. Raul and I ran to the present table to place the Rodriguez's gift on it. Then we ran off to the monkey bars.  
  
"I'm so excited, I can't wait for all my other friends to get here!" I exclaimed to Raul.  
  
"Me, either. I want a piece of cake!" said Raul.  
  
"Later, later," I assured him. Suddenly, I heard a yell come from Luz. She was bent over forward and was crying. I saw Mom and Dad rush over to her. Tito ran inside, yelling that he was going to call the doctor. Raul and I looked at each other worriedly.  
  
"I think your mom is sick!" I said to Raul. We both jumped down and ran to Dad.  
  
"The baby is coming now!" Mom screamed. "I'll get Luz in the car, Tony. You and Tito bring the boys and Mia. Stop for Diego on the way, okay? Lock the house up and turn the grill off!" My dad followed my mom's directions and dragged Raul and I to the car. He buckled us in and went to get Mia and Tito. They came into the car and we sped off, with Mom and Luz in front of us. We stopped at Raul's house to get Diego and then we sped to the hospital, where Luz's stomach would get flat and something, I hoped other than Mia, would appear. When we got there, we waited in a room for a long time, looking at magazines and books. Suddenly, a door opened and a lady in a blue space suit came out and Tito jumped up.  
  
"Mr. Rodriguez," she began. "You have a new daughter."  
  
My heart sank. I looked at Mia, snoozing away in her special seat, and wanted to cry. Dad picked Mia up out of her seat and I just knew that he was going to give her to Raul's mom and dad. I began to cry.  
  
"Dom, what's wrong?" Dad asked me.  
  
"I don't want you to give Mia to Raul's parents!" I wailed. Dad laughed and held Mia over his shoulder and began to pat her back.  
  
"Dom, where would you get that idea?"  
  
"After Mom's stomach got flat, Mia appeared. Then Luz's stomach is flat and now we have to give Mia to them!"  
  
Dad just kept on laughing. "Dom, Raul's parents are having their OWN baby. Mia is ours to keep. Forever."  
  
"Really," I said, sniffing.  
  
"Really. Now, let's go see Raul and Diego's new baby sister." With that, Dad, carrying Mia, led us boys and Tito out of the room and down a hallway to a bunch of windows. That's when I got my first good look at Lung-Baby. It was a small baby, much smaller than Mia, and she was having her hair washed. Her skinny arms and legs were flailing everywhere and she was screaming at the top of her lungs. Underneath all that soap was thick black hair.  
  
"That's the gorilla?" asked Raul hopefully.  
  
Eight-year-old Diego scoffed and punched his arm. "No, dope. That's a baby."  
  
"Is its name Mia?" I asked. I still wasn't sure if Mia would go to the Rodriguez's, despite what Dad said.  
  
"No," Tito laughed. "Leticia." 


	2. Dom's Bottled Prize

The Puerto Rican sun began to set as I made my way down the road toward Walter Chang's bodega, intent on getting plastered and passing out on the road two blocks from home. I shuffled along, letting the heat warm my head. Usually, Leon and Vince join me at Chang's, but they were.off somewhere, doing God knows what. Since Jesse died two years ago, Leon died, too. He goes about living his life, but it's as if he's only alive because he's too much of a chicken shit to shoot himself.  
  
Vince is a dad. When O'Connor skipped town to be with his "homies" in Miami, Mia was left without a shoulder to cry on. She turned to Vince, he let her, and now Leticia takes care of little Paul while Mia studies and Vince comes drinking with me.  
  
We chose PR because of Letty. It's her hometown, we were sick of Mexico, yaddah-yaddah-yaddah. We live in a small house, in a town called Catano, southwest of San Jan. Quiet little place. We each have space and the backyard is nice. Paul likes to practice his walking and running there, Mia and Letty work on their tans, peace and quiet. Something we've needed for a long time now and didn't get too much of in Mexico.  
  
I continued down the cracked sidewalk, pausing every now and then to let some neighborhood kid ride by on a skateboard. I approached the open doorway and stepped inside of Chang's rickety place, set back from the road and hidden from view by several ugly bushes.  
  
"Ah, Dominic. Come for your nightly medication?" Chang chortled, stepping out from behind his disheveled counter.  
  
I nodded. "It's just me tonight."  
  
"I see. What is the problem today, Dominic?" Chang asked me in his Korean accent.  
  
"What isn't the problem?" I selected a bottle of Cuervo 1800 and walked it up to the counter. Walter rang it up in the register and I paid him.  
  
"You must understand that Leticia is a woman now, not a little girl. You need to accept the fact that things will never be the same as when you were fourteen years old and she was ten." Walter bagged my bottled prize and set it gently in front of me. "You must let her go, Dominic," Chang said, remembering our last conversation. "Please, do not keep drowning yourself in alcohol because you are afraid to talk to her. Go home."  
  
I could take a hint. I picked up the bottle and shuffled slowly out of Chang's bodega, letting his words of ancient Oriental wisdom roll over me. I strolled over to the road and headed toward the beach. When I reached a park bench that was sitting in the sand, I plopped down into it and began taking sips from the bottle as the golden sun dipped beyond the horizon.  
  
I must have passed out on the bench because the next sound I heard was the sound of exhaust pulling up behind me and shutting off. I couldn't see anything because it was dark and my eyes were blurry, but the smell of suntan lotion and grease filled my nostrils. I heard Letty's footsteps approaching the bench. She kneeled beside me and began talking softly to me, in Spanish, smoothing my wrinkled shirt over my chest. She helped me stand up and my empty bottle fell to the ground. She led me to her car and sat me in the front seat, buckled me in, and drove off. 


	3. The Little Hellion

Echo Park, Los Angeles, 1987  
  
It was around Leticia's sixth birthday that I knew she'd be a little hellion. She could speak both English and Spanish, run quicker than Raul and I, and could rattle off the names of every single Matchbox car in my old collection. She also had a mouth on her. Being Puerto Rican, she was outspoken and loud, both crass and sweet at the same time. And she followed me wherever I went.  
  
Sometimes, I'd have to say, "Okay, Letty, it's time for you to go home now. I'll walk you home." Of course, she'd kick her skinny little legs and whine, but I'd simply pick her up, carry her down the street, kicking and screaming, and place her on her feet at the front stoop of the Rodriguez's house. By the time we'd get to her house, though, her screams and kicks would subside to sobs and little whimpers.  
  
"But I wanna hang out with you all evening, Dom!" she'd cry.  
  
That pretty much broke my heart. Leticia HAD two big brothers to hang with, but she never really bonded with Raul and Diego. Why did she want me so bad? I was just a stupid ten-year-old with frizzy hair and skinny arms.  
  
Leticia followed me home after I hugged her goodbye that evening. I didn't realize it until I let myself in the back door and didn't hear it close. She was standing in the doorway, her face tear-streaked and her bottom lip quivering. I couldn't believe it. Instead of yelling, like I should have done, I went over to her and knelt down. I took her hand in my own.  
  
"Letty," I began, as gently as I could, since she was ready to burst into tears again. "You need to stay at your house. You can't be here all the time, you know that. Your family would like you to be there."  
  
"Don't you want me here, Dom?" she whispered. Well, I just choked right up and my heart shattered. Fat tears began rolling down my fourth-grade cheeks.  
  
"Letty." My voice cracked. I took her in my arms and held her while she cried noiselessly, my own tears dripping onto the back of her Hulk Hogan t- shirt. Dammit.  
  
Late that night, Leticia was snoring away in my bed and I was on the floor. This situation had become a habit. She'd start out in Mia's room, both of them in Mia's bed. Then she'd hear me come inside from being somewhere with Raul and run to my room before I got there. She'd jump in my bed and pretend to be asleep, just so she could be near me and know I was around to keep her safe.  
  
I lay there, in my Oakland Raiders sleeping bag, baffled about what was happening with Leticia. I knew that Luz and Tito had been fighting a lot, and their marriage was falling apart before her eyes. Raul and Diego hardly paid attention to her, only to yell at her to get away from their things. I loved Letty so much, so damn much. She was my partner for everything. She'd kick my shins and tell me to stop arguing with my mom. She'd make sure the ice cream truck didn't pass my house without us getting something. And she accompanied me to our garage many times to watch Dad teach me about cars. I'd hear her laugh about something or cuss somebody out. She was fierce, a fighter. She never let one of the neighborhood punks pick on her. If they did, she'd do this wrestling move I taught her. I won't bother to repeat what it was, except that each kid left my yard cradling his nuts.  
  
Sure, life at the Rodriguez house was hard for Leticia. Tito left every night to get wasted (hmmm, sounds familiar) and escape from Luz's yelling and crying. Letty had witnessed a lot in her young life. But I wasn't sure if I was the best person for Leticia to attach herself to. Mia would have been better. Mia was the sweetest person I knew. She was the same age as Letty, but Mia has always acted older than her age. Mia and Letty were friends, but Mia liked dolls and tea parties and playhouses. Letty liked riding bikes, building forts, and playing Cops and Robbers.  
  
I felt unsettled as I turned over onto my side to fall asleep. I listened to her snores and realized that Raul was no longer my best friend. Letty was. 


	4. Sleeping Late

My drunken state didn't last long. When my eyes flew open at three-thirty in the afternoon, my head hurt so bad that I couldn't sit up right away. Wait, where was I? I looked around, pleased to see that I was in my own bedroom and lying in my own bed. I heard a sigh next to me. I looked next to me, where the sound came from, and saw Leticia. She was sleeping in her underwear, on top of the covers. I smiled and drank in the sight of her. She was wearing black cotton bikini underwear and this matching bra she liked. She was on her back, her face turned away from me, her chest rising and falling with each breath. Jesus, I just wanted to climb on top of her and show her how much I loved her, but I loved her so much that I was afraid I'd break her.  
  
I put my arms behind my head and began to think. Leticia was a woman now, as Chang said. She is no longer the little punk in Army pants who could flatten a swarthy Asian in two seconds. She was a woman, a lady. No longer a girl. I had a hard time realizing that not long ago. After I fucked up the last truck heist, I was scared that she would never talk to me again, since she was almost road kill. She ran off to Mexico with Leon, didn't call or talk to us for six months. Found out they lived in Tijuana and Mia and I joined them after Vince got out of the hospital. We came to PR because we were sick of being in Mexico. Letty needed to be near her mother, Mexico was no place to raise Paul, stuff like that. Letty became a different person since we moved here. It's almost as if she no longer depends on me for things and it's almost as if she is doing okay without leaning on me for a crutch. It's been scaring me. I think that she doesn't feel the same way about me as she did in LA, or even in Mexico. I used to be her protector. Now, she protects herself and seems like she's doing okay. Chang was right. I need to talk to her. I love her so much that it's killing me inside and I'm worried that she doesn't want to be with me anymore. It worried me because I have a little gift to give her and I want to wait for the right time to present it to her.  
  
I sat up slowly, allowing my brain to recover from the alcohol bath I gave it last night. My clothes were in the closet. If I could just sneak over to the closet, grab something, and run to the bathroom silently, Letty wouldn't wake up and she could sleep. What was she doing, sleeping until three-thirty in the afternoon, anyway? Was she sick? But before I could even think about getting up out of bed, Leticia stirred and turned her face toward me. Her ebony eyes fluttered open and focused on me for a second. Her lips sprang into a huge smile.  
  
"Hey, Dom," her scratchy little voice said.  
  
My heart melted. "Hey, babe." Scratch that. I wasn't going to get up any time soon. 


	5. A Little Jealous

*** Sorry I haven't updated in awhile, guys, but college is a killer. I've been busy with work, too, so I plan to update more often! Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing! Keep them coming! ***  
  
When Leticia was seven years old and at the high point of her bratty stage, Luz and Tito got divorced. The biggest shocker was that Luz was leaving Tito with the three kids and was hightailing it to San Juan, Puerto Rico, practically on the other side of the world. This devastated Letty, because she was close to her mother and hated to see her father so upset. So, with Diego and Raul constantly picking on her, and her father constantly with a bottle of vodka in his hand, Leticia became a mess.  
  
She was small for her age, with big black eyes and long, black hair. She was tanned, although she had funny tan lines because she always wore clothes when she went swimming or to the beach, because she would never be caught dead in "that fluffy pink stuff that Mia wears", meaning a bathing suit. Her favorite shirt was this ratty thing with a tribute to the Puerto Rican flag, which was too small for her, because her grandparents sent it to her when she was born. There were bloodstains, grass stains, food stains, dirt, crusty stuff, boogers, snot, you name it. It was on that damn shirt. Luz had to fight her to put it into the wash, which wasn't often because you know how Letty is.  
  
So I wasn't surprised one afternoon, when I was eleven, when Letty showed up in our garage wearing that shirt. She was crying, and pointing to her t- shirt, and seemed ready to collapse. Of course, my dad and I ran over to her and knelt down to her size.  
  
"Letty," I began. "What the fuck is the matter? Did someone hurt you?" She just kept crying and crying, pointing to the flag on her t-shirt. Dad took over for me.  
  
"Let me lift up this shirt, Letty." Dad gently lifted the top of her shirt and was disgusted by what he saw. It was a big, black bruise in the shape of a fist. After he showed me, he quickly pulled the shirt back down and rocked back on his heels, his head in his hands. Letty was still crying. Her face was a mess and her hair needed brushed.  
  
"Letty," Dad said. "Who did this to you?"  
  
Letty coughed for a minute before answering. She caught her breath and managed to warble out what had happened.  
  
"D-Diego," she sniffed. "He saw me this morning before he went to his friend's house. I said, 'Look, Diego, this is where Mom is,' and he said, 'So what? Letty, Mom's never gonna come back here to get us, so why the fuck do you still wear that stupid shirt?' and then he punched me, right on the flag!" Letty burst into fresh tears. As for me, my blood pressure was rising. I wanted to punch Diego in the stomach, or the chest, to make a big bruise like the one he gave to my Leticia. I pulled Letty into my arms and hugged her. She cried all over my neck, but I couldn't have cared less. Dad went inside and brought Letty an ice pack. I sat with her in the garage with the ice pack for over an hour, listening to her sniffle, then burst back into tears, then get angry and tense up, then get sad and just bury herself in my chest. While she was having her nervous breakdown, I thought about a few things. I realized that Letty needed to spend some time with Mia, whether she liked it or not. Mia liked Letty, and never understood why she never bonded with her. Letty liked Mia, too, but they were just too different. Still, they could find something to do together that they would both enjoy. Later, I found out what that would be: picking on me.  
  
Anyway, after I found out that Diego hit Letty, I stopped going over to her house to play with Raul. He stopped coming over to my house, because he and Diego were mad that I spent so much time with Letty because they hated her. At one point, Raul asked me if I'd rather be Letty's best friend than his. My answer shocked him. I told him that Letty would never, ever let me down. I also told him that I didn't like the way he treated his little sister. He sent me to hell and that was the last time that I ever spoke to Raul before he got hit by a car two weeks later and died on the scene. When I ran over to help, he spoke to me before he died. He said to take care of Leticia because their dad would never. I told him that I would until the day that I died. When they took away his body, and someone began cleaning up the scene, Letty came over. She didn't know what had happened to him until I told her.  
  
"Leticia, Raul is gone. He was hit by a car and he died." I expected her to cry and run away, but she didn't. She gave me this confused look.  
  
"So he's not coming back?" she asked, her eyes big and round.  
  
I shook my head. "No, Letty." She stood there and watched someone hose off the road. She turned back to me.  
  
"Can I live at your house, Dom?"  
  
I wanted to tell her yes. But I knew she had to go home to her dad and Diego. I'd personally rather go home to a firing squad, but I knew she had to.  
  
"You can come over here whenever you like, Letty. But you have to live at your house."  
  
She nodded. "Okay."  
  
Letty thought that "whenever you like" meant 24/7. She slept over every night and only went home to get her things. None of us minded, my mother loved her and bathed her every night (something she usually hates) and Dad cooked for all of us. We were like one big happy family, the five of us. Mia and Letty got along better and became almost as close as Letty and I.  
  
When my mother died a few months later of cervical cancer, things were rough at first. Dad didn't talk much, but never drowned himself in alcohol like Tito did when Luz left him. He spent lots more time in the garage, working on cars, and singing to himself. Strange behavior for a dad, but he had just lost his wife.  
  
Letty's brother Diego was arrested not long after my mom died. He was sixteen and was experimenting with drugs, and ended up getting picked up, along with some other hooligans, for pot one evening. We never saw him again. As for Tito, who knows. Letty hardly went to her house anymore, and Dad suggested that she get everything from her room and bring it to our house. I helped her that afternoon. I loaded boxes, I lugged bags, and I carried Letty after she hurt her leg trying to stand on a closet shelf. When her stuff had been placed in our living room, I had a talk with her. She surprised ME when she began talking first. She was eight years old.  
  
"Dom, I've been thinking. Maybe I should just go away and leave everyone alone. Then, maybe people will stop dying and running away and dervorcing."  
  
I had to hold in a laugh, at "dervorcing". I just took her dirty little hand in mine and said, "Letty, you aren't the cause of all this stuff. Don't even think that, even for a second. We love having you here."  
  
I felt awful for Letty, to have to deal with death and divorce at such a young age. But she seemed to be doing okay. She became my sidekick at school. She finished my fights after I was too tired to go on, she helped me with math (she was a smart little shit), and she bailed me out of the principal's office more than three times. She was four years younger than me, but no one seemed to care. They all thought of Letty as one of the guys. When I went to junior high and Letty was still in Elementary school, she was upset. But Mia stayed with her everyday and they'd meet Vince and me at the end of the drive after their bus dropped them off every single day. The four of us became close.  
  
One evening, after Dad made his famous stuffed shells, she came into my room and found me talking on the phone to Mariana Ortiz, my new girlfriend.  
  
"Who are you talking to, Dom?" she asked, figuring it was Vince, my best friend.  
  
"Mariana, my girlfriend."  
  
Letty nodded, and turned around. When she looked back at me, I thought I saw a little bit of jealousy in her big black eyes. Letty? Jealous? No way. 


	6. Leon's Phone Call

When I climbed off of Leticia for the third time since I woke up, she was asleep even before I could get settled back on my side of the bed. I must have worn her out.  
  
"Dom? Uncle Dom?" a voice stage-whispered. I realized that Paul was standing in my doorway and probably saw me exit Letty's body. Startled, I rushed to pull the covers over me and gave the two-year-old my sweetest smile.  
  
"Hey there, big guy. How did you get up here?"  
  
"Mommy."  
  
As soon as he said that, Mia poked her head into the room and smiled. "Hey."  
  
"Morning, Mi," I said. "What's for dinner?"  
  
Mia laughed. "Ravioli. Is Letty okay?"  
  
I nodded. "Yeah, I wore her out after she woke up, that's all."  
  
Mia made a face and took Paul by the hand. "Come on, little man. Let's go get a bath and have dinner." Mia led Paul out of my doorway and silently closed it after them. I sighed and turned toward Letty. She was sound asleep again, this time under the covers. I didn't have the heart to wake her so I got up as quickly as I could and scooted into the bathroom.  
  
Later on that evening, at dinner, Leon excused himself early.  
  
"Why, dawg?" Vince protested.  
  
"I just wanna go to sleep."  
  
"What about goin' over to Chang's?" I asked Leon.  
  
"Naah, not tonight, Dom." Just then, the phone rang. Leon's eyes lit up and practically broke his neck to get to the phone before anyone else answered it. He ran the ringing cordless into his bedroom and a moment later, we all heard the door slam. Mia raised her eyebrows.  
  
"I think Leon is seeing somebody." We all nodded in agreement, Letty's smile growing wider.  
  
"Hell, yeah. He never acts that way about phone calls." Letty grinned.  
  
"Hell, if y'all ain't goin' overda Chang's, then I'm gonna go out to the garage and fiddle around." With that, Vince got up from the table and headed out the door.  
  
"Take Paul with you!" Mia called after him. Vince stopped and turned around. He picked up his son and the two of them headed happily out the door. 


	7. Mariana Ortiz

Mariana Ortiz came over a few days after Letty found me on the phone with her. She brought a movie with her.  
  
"Hi, Dominic, I thought we could watch Ghostbusters and order pizza or something," Mariana said as she stepped through my front door.  
  
"Okay," I said. I shut the door. Mariana sashayed over to the sofa in a short plaid skirt and a little white top. I was pretty pleased with myself. I actually got the hottest girl in school to come over and watch a movie with me.  
  
"What are you guys doing, Dom?" a voice from behind me said. Leticia came down the stairs, eating a Popsicle and wearing one of my old t-shirts.  
  
"Nothing, Letty, go back upstairs." I was looking forward to spending time with Mariana alone. I didn't mean to sound irritated with Letty, but the shocked expression on her face told me that she was hurt. I sighed as she darted back upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.  
  
"Who was that? Your little sister?" Mariana asked. She settled herself on the couch.  
  
"No, the friend of my little sister."  
  
"Oh."  
  
I popped the movie into the VCR and grabbed the remote. I settled myself next to Mariana and pressed Play.  
  
Upstairs, Letty was bitching to Mia about what I had just done in Mia's room. Letty was pacing Mia's bedroom while Mia toiled over homework at her desk.  
  
"He told me to go back upstairs!" Letty said, rage in her scratchy little voice.  
  
"Dom would never hurt you, Let." Mia put down her pen and turned to face Letty. "He's got his stupid girlfriend here, that's all. They want to have some priversy."  
  
"He doesn't need priversy! Priversy is for married people, your dad said." Letty began to get worked up again.  
  
"Just stay here with me. Help me with my spelling words, okay? Now, read off the words from this list," Mia bossed, handing Letty a small book opened to page sixty-seven.  
  
"Convertible."  
  
"Convertible. C-O-N-V-E-R-T-I-B-L-E. Convertible."  
  
Mariana stayed during the whole movie and dinner. Letty seemed a bit miffed by all of this, but kept quiet. I knew that she was still pissed at me, and I didn't blame her one bit. I had to clear this up or I'd go crazy. I hated when Letty was upset or hurting and I hated myself even more for being the cause of it. When the dishes were done and Mariana's Papi had come to pick her up, I went looking for Letty. She was pushing around some toy action figures in the living room. Mia was on the couch nearby, watching Ghostbusters. I went up to the coffee table where Letty was just making Hulk Hogan smash his head open on the floor after a deadly suicide jump from the edge of the table.  
  
"Whyyyyaaa!" she exclaimed. Hulk's tragic demise elicited an excited giggle of glee from Letty. She ignored me as I plopped onto the floor across from her and picked up a G.I. Joe. I walked the G.I. Joe up to Hulk's body and made him talk.  
  
"Hmmm, you're looking a little sick there, Hulk Hogan!" I said, in the G.I. Joe's voice. Letty snuck a look at me, trying to hide a smile. I continued.  
  
"Maybe I'll give you a little of my super G.I. Joe powers and you'll wake up!" I placed the G.I. Joe on top of Hulk's body and made a zapping noise. I had Letty's full attention by now.  
  
"There! Now let's see if he wakes up!" I picked up Hulk Hogan and made him spring back to life. "Yay! Now we can get into a REAL fight!" I picked up G.I. Joe and began swatting Hulk and Joe into each other, in a fight. Letty was laughing and squealing. Every once in awhile, she'd cheer for Hulk or groan when Joe got a punch in. Letty loved it when I played action figures with her.  
  
"Dom, you're so goofy!" Letty laughed, her black eyes twinkling. The sound of her laughter lifted my heart and I grabbed for Letty. I tackled her onto the floor and began to tickle her. She squealed and twisted beneath me.  
  
"Let, I'm sorry about what I said to you today. I didn't mean to make you feel like shit."  
  
"I was really upset, Dom. But it's okay now." Letty grinned at me. I grabbed her and continued to tickle the pants off of her until Dad came in and sent us all to bed. 


	8. Leon's Obsession

Leon skipped out on going to Chang's with us for three nights in a row now. His excuses were always lame. His latest ones went along the lines of "having too bad of a hangover to do it all over again" or "Nah, I got some other stuff to do. You guys go without me." So, by tonight, we were pretty surprised when we found Leon trailing behind us on our walk.  
  
"You back in the game, dawg?" Vince asked him, as we lumbered down our street and passed a Walgreens.  
  
"Yeah, for tonight, anyway." Leon kicked at a pebble and looked into the windows of the small drug store. He stared into them for a full minute and a half before Vince kicked his boot and told him to move his ass. We continued down the street to Chang's bodega and arrived just as a band of wild-looking teenagers were running out of it. Chang was chasing them out with a broom and yelling in Chinese, probably swearing. The kids jumped into an old El Camino and sped away, leaving dust clouding behind the rusty vehicle.  
  
"It's the three amigos," Chang joked as he saw us walk up. He set down the broom that he had been brandishing at the teenagers and chortled with laughter. "What will you be having tonight?"  
  
Leon, Vince, and I followed Chang into the bodega.  
  
"My usual," I replied.  
  
"I'll just have a beer," said Vince.  
  
"Make mine a bottle of water on the rocks," answered Leon. Three heads turned toward him.  
  
"Bro, we came all the way here and you want water?" Vince asked incredulously.  
  
"I'm trying not to drink so much, dawg."  
  
"Yeah, right." Vince wasn't convinced. He took his beer and paid Chang. I did the same.  
  
"See you on the beach," I said. Vince and I took our beverages out to the little wooden bench that we usually passed out on and settled ourselves in the warm sand. Above us, the sun was setting and the beach was emptying out. Leon came a few minutes later with a bottle of Dasani water. He dropped to the sand and sprawled out next to Vince.  
  
"So, what's this new obsession with phone calls, water, and Walgreens?" I began. I kicked Leon's shin lightly and sipped from my bottle of tequila.  
  
"Nuttin', dawg."  
  
"Is it a chick?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"From Walgreens?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Who doesn't like guys who drink too much?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Who calls the house?"  
  
"Sometimes."  
  
"Wow."  
  
It was very, very late when I finally heard Leticia's new SE-R pull up behind the bench and shut off. Leon and Vince were both fast asleep, but I hadn't drunk that much so I was still up, thinking. Her booted footsteps echoed in my head as she got closer to us. Instead of hauling me off to her car and driving me away, she plopped down into the sand next to me. Very gently, Leticia pried the half-empty bottle out of my hands and placed it into the sand next to her. She rested her head on my shoulder and sighed. I breathed in. I smelled ocean, sand, alcohol, Letty's sweet-smelling hair, and . . . feet. Vince had his boots off. 


	9. Letty Gets Older

I remember the first time I had sex like it happened yesterday. I was fifteen, and Mariana Ortiz was the only thing on my brain. Mariana lived a few streets away from Dad's garage, so she walked over there one afternoon when I was helping Dad out with some things. She was all decked out in cute jeans and a tank top, and it was all over from there. She swaggered over to me and took me by the hand, saying, "You know, Dom. Today's my fifteenth birthday and I think that we should spend it together." That was all it took. I was down the street to her house in thirteen seconds flat.  
  
It was also over in thirteen seconds flat. It sucked; pretty much because it was my first time, and hers, too. She hated it and although it was a pretty weird experience for me, I'll never forget it. It was the first of the many times that Mariana and I would fuck. When I got home from her house, I called Vince over to tell him about the whole ordeal. He was thrilled for me and decided that he was jealous, so he immediately left to share my same experience with Taylor Brisbane, Mariana's cute best friend.  
  
Leticia was growing up. She was sort of ugly, too. Very skinny with absolutely NO chest or butt or anything yet. She had this long, long black hair that was always knotty because she never let Mia brush it for her. She always had busted up knuckles and a dirty face and crooked bottom teeth. Whenever Dad took the three of us to the dentist for checkups, Letty would never go into the room with the lady. Dad gave up and let her stay home every six months. Dad always offered to bathe Letty, but she wouldn't hear of it. Bathing was a foreign word to her and, when she did bathe, she would jump into the tub and jump back out again and say she was clean. Dad explained very patiently that she had to use soap and a washcloth to get clean, not just jumping in plain water.  
  
Compared to Mariana, Letty was hideous. But I loved Letty. She was so smart, and fresh-mouthed, and funny. I felt that it was my duty to look after her, since she was so rambunctious. Dad worked long and hard at the garage, Mia had a job at old Mrs. Bortney's market down the street or was always out with her "normal" girlfriends who liked girly stuff, and I was busy being a fifteen-year-old guy.  
  
Letty tagged along behind me, everywhere I went, especially the garage. Ever since this one time Dad let her help him fix something, she's been bugging us about letting her watch stuff and hand us tools. She was actually a good helper. She somehow knew the right tools to hand us if we asked her to give us something, and she was pretty strong. Vince and I taught her how to change oil and stuff. Soon, Letty decided that she loved to get dirty and greasy and lug stuff around. Her, Vince, and I went every day to help Dad out and learn new things. Dad began teaching her how cars and engines work and she got pretty good at pointing out parts under the hood of the Charger that Dad and I were building.  
  
As Letty got older, she became less clingy to me, probably because she was too old to cry on my shoulder. She wasn't a little kid anymore who needed to be hugged all the time. I was a little bit worried when I realized that it had been months since Letty cried to me. I panicked, thinking that she no longer looked up to me and was drifting away. That panic didn't last long because that same night, Letty came into my room crying about some dream that she had. I was glad to see that we still had our special relationship. I tucked her into my bed and waited until she was asleep before I hauled out my old Oakland Raiders sleeping bag and settled down on the floor.  
  
When my Dad died, I was three days shy of my eighteenth birthday. He died one sunny afternoon at the tracks, in Palmdale. Some guy he was racing against hit him and sent his car into a wall. When I heard the explosion, I never would have thought that it was my dad's car. Vince drove Mia, Letty, and I home that afternoon and ended up staying the night. Letty and Mia cried themselves to sleep that evening, Mia in Vince's arms and Leticia in mine. 


End file.
